Friday 8 June 2012 18.00 EDT
First published on Friday 8 June 2012 18.00 EDT

I already know the secret: £50m in the bank and early retirement to Malibu.

Ah, but then you'd be worrying that a wobbly stock market would erode your riches or that rising sea levels would engulf your beach house.

So you're saying that there's no hope for any of us.

Steady on! I'm saying that you're going to find something to worry about whatever your circumstances. The trick is to tackle it from within as well as from without.

You mean the fact that my debts are soaring and my income is shrinking and the euro threatens to blow us all sky high needn't bother me so long as I cultivate an inner ray of sunshine?

Get a sense of perspective. "We're all likely to live longer, safer, healthier, wealthier lives than anyone on the history of the planet and yet we worry and stress more than ever," says performance coach Paul McGee, author of How Not to Worry. "We live in an entitlement age where we expect far more out of life, and stress gives some of us a sense of purpose."

So when my home is repossessed I should thank heaven I'm not a medieval peasant?

You're anticipating the worst-case scenario, simply because headlines have scared you. Overexposure to news has skewed our outlook, says McGee. "Quit feeding your fears," he says. "If you analyse the business pages on the commute to work, you'll arrive full of doom and gloom. Instead, scan them quickly, then do the crossword. And change your victim T-shirt. If you convince yourself you're an impotent victim of outside events, like the Greek crisis, you'll start becoming passive at work instead of proactive."

Put my head in the sand?

I'd prefer the slogan: "Keep calm and carry on." Neil Shah, director of the Stress Management Society, believes that what you focus on determines what you get out of life. "The reticula activating system of the brain looks for evidence to back up a view," he says. "So if you stub a toe when you get out of bed, and think that's a portent for a bad day ahead, your subconscious will be looking for reasons to justify that opinion." The idea is, if we are worried about something it's more likely to happen. "Say you're worried about losing your job, that worry will impact on your behaviour at work and could end up making you a casualty. But if you believe you'll score a winning goal, your chances of doing so are higher," says Shah.

Try telling that to someone whose business has just gone bankrupt.

No one's saying you should never worry. What you should do, says McGee is analyse those fears. "The two vital questions are: Where is this issue on the scale of one to 10 if 10 means death? And how important will it be in six months?" he says. "There are two types of worry: worth-it worry, which motivates you into taking some kind of remedial action, and worthless worry about something that might never happen." For both types, something as simple as going for a walk in the lunchbreak can help. "The endorphins that exercise releases in the brain clear the mind and help restore a sense of perspective," he says.

Last time I took a walk in my lunch hour I had my iPhone nicked.

Your fears are understandable but you mustn't let worry colour the future. "Instead of focusing on what might go wrong, concentrate on what you'd like to happen," says Shah, who has run four marathons by telling himself he can. "Fake it till you make it. You'll soon believe in your own lies if you do it for long enough."